Podcast Highlights
Welcome back to the podcast! Today we continue our inspiring conversation with Dr. Rhoda Bernard, the Founding Managing Director of the Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education and Assistant Chair of the Music Education Department at Berklee College of Music.
In Part 1, Dr. Bernard shared her incredible journey in music education, her vision for accessible arts education, and a behind-the-scenes look at her upcoming book. If you haven’t listened to that episode yet, we highly recommend starting there—it sets the stage for today’s discussion.
In this second part, we dive even deeper. Dr. Bernard opens up about her current projects, offers practical advice for music educators, and shares powerful insights on advocacy, accessibility, and unleashing creativity in every student. She also leaves us with some incredible takeaways that will inspire and challenge educators to think differently about their teaching.
We’re thrilled to welcome Dr. Bernard back for Part 2 of this conversation—let’s jump right in!
Stay in Contact with Rhoda:
Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education:
Links Mentioned in This Episode:
Where to find me:
Crescendo Community Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crescendocommunity
Official Crescendo Page: https://www.facebook.com/CrescendoMusicEd/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CrescendoMusicEd
Twitter: https://twitter.com/crescendomusic
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-o-shea-62a3741b/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CrescendoDeb
Introduction
Gday, I’m Debbie O’Shea and this is the Crescendo Music Education Podcast – Episode 159.
This podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Turrbal people. I acknowledge them as the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging. They were the first music makers on this land.
Debbie O’Shea
Hello, Debbie O’Shea, back here with you. Thank you so much for tuning in. I don’t take this for granted. You’re giving up your valuable time to have a listen to what I have to say and also what our amazing guests say. This is part two of an amazing guest, Dr Rhoda Bernard. We’re going to continue talking about inclusive education and the things that her book will have to offer. We’re also going to get to my favourite, the nuggets of fabulous and also advocacy. I love that Rhoda is just as passionate, I’d like to say more passionate, but I don’t know if that’s possible, but just as passionate about music education for everybody. I know you’re going to enjoy part two of this chat.
Inspiration Behind the Book
Debbie O’Shea
Now, I think we’ve heard this really in what you’ve said. But what was your inspiration to write the book? Is this something you’ve always wanted to do and you finally had the space to do it, or just this opportunity came up, and you thought, Oh, good. I’ll stick it all in a book. What was your inspiration?
Rhoda Bernard
Couple of things, I have to tell you another story. How long ago was 1987? Almost 40 years now. So 38 years ago I got to know a person who has published many academic books, probably at that time, three or four. By now it’s seven or eight easily, if not more. I remember being kind of in awe of this person, like wow. In 1987 I’m pretty young then and I’m like, wow someday I want to publish a book. I don’t know what it’ll be, but I want to be a person who published a book. That’s kind of a cool kind of person to be. I was 21, so that was a long time ago and it’s always sort of been niggling in the back of my head that I want to be that person and then all of the jobs I’ve had since finishing my doctorate, in academia, have all been year round with very intensive summer administrative responsibilities. So it’s not like I could take the summer and write. As I said before, I was only able to get my very first sabbatical after Boston Conservatory and Berklee College of Music merged eight years ago and then I was in the first round of applications, it was possible to get a sabbatical seven years after that, to have the time. So the time was the biggie and then the topic was easy. I’ve spent more than 20 years in this field, in the work that I do with music and arts education, people with disabilities and so much time doing teacher professional development in lots of different contexts that I know that the profession is hungry for. I know the questions people are asking me. I know the struggles people are having. I’ve seen it, I’ve lived it and I hear about it all the time. So it was really translating that to a book and situating it in its history. So in the early chapter, I don’t know if it’s the first chapter or the second. I think it’s the second chapter. I situate this in the history of what’s come before, because there’s a lot of great work in the states that’s come before this. There are some incredible scholars, all of whom I mention and cite whose work lays the groundwork for the development of this sort of interdisciplinary field that I’m trying to articulate with this book and then give a lot of practical advice for. So there’s lots of good people doing this work all around the world and I wanted to make sure that it was in the context of that. But that’s what inspired me to write it.
The Book’s Purpose and Lasting Impact
Debbie O’Shea
We’ve talked about what’s in it. I’m really getting excited about it. I can’t wait to get it. But what do you think? If you had your choice, what would you want readers to take away from it? I guess the joy is in part that people will take things away from your book that you wouldn’t have even dreamed that they would take away from it. That’s sort of joy. It’s a bit like composing a piece of music and I have dabbled a bit. You go the audience and the singers, oh, I’m expecting that they’ll probably think this, this and this, but you get feedback. I had no idea you would feel like that or react like that. So with the proviso, of course, you really have no idea what people will take away from your book. But what do you hope that they might?
Rhoda Bernard
At least two things. I hope it’s many, but at least two things. So one thing I’m really proud of about the book that we haven’t mentioned is that the book includes first person perspectives of artists with disability. Like I interviewed 20 artists with disabilities from all over the world and there are quotes from them throughout the book. I commissioned artwork from an artist with disabilities for the cover and also beginning each chapter, and there’s some of her art actually kind of throughout the book. So to me, that’s important, because the first person perspective of people with disabilities tends to be absent from all kinds of conversations. There’s this phrase that was coined ages ago “nothing about us without us”. But yet, the conversation about access often happens without any input from the actual people that are being affected. So to me it was really important to include first person perspectives. So I hope that that has some impact for people. Then I hope that they take the book as an opportunity to create their own strategies. So this is just the beginning of the fruits of tools that people can use. Then, by golly, make up your own. One of the things I tell my students all the time, my pre service teacher students and even my in service teacher students, is this, and you will totally get it Debbie, we are not teaching the curriculum, we are not teaching the repertoire, we are not teaching the lesson plan, we are not teaching the skill. We are teaching the human beings in the room with us. So many early career teachers make the list of what they want to “cover in a class session” and if they don’t get to it all, they think they’ve failed. I say you’ve succeeded because it meant that you followed the students, not the list. So similarly, this is a book of strategies and that’s great, yet it is only the beginning, not the ending. What will make the book successful is sure, people should try the strategies and they’ll help them, but what really will make it successful is if they use it as a springboard to be creative. So they try a strategy in the book with a particular student or situation and it doesn’t quite work so they tweak it, or something in the book sparks their thinking, ooh, I don’t want to do that thing but that made me think of this other thing I want to try. That to me, that’s the artistry of teaching and how we’re all composers in our own way. So I guess, to continue the metaphor, I hope there’s a whole lot of composition that comes up the book.
Debbie O’Shea
Love it. That is wonderful. And yes, if that happens, of course your work here is done.
Rhoda Bernard
Exactly and in the end of the book there’s a part saying here’s how to contact me. Get in touch with me. I want to know what you’re doing, because I bet it’s really cool and I want to learn from it.
Debbie O’Shea
Yeah, I love that and I think that’s one of the reasons why the high performing teachers are drawn to professional development and networks, because we learn from each other.
Rhoda Bernard
There is, especially if you’re an arts educator and I’ll talk about music because that’s where we are, you are often the only person who does what you do in your building and you might be the only person who does what you do in your school district and so most of the time you are sitting in professional development that is not relevant to you, at least in the US, that is often the case. And you don’t get the opportunity to network and to just like reality check with someone to validate I’m doing this really odd thing, what do you think? Just to have that conversation? Or have you ever tried this and to think, no, how does that work? Like those conversations are so much more important than anything a facilitator can do, I think.
Debbie O’Shea
Yep, yep. I am with you. I want to just circle back to something you said. I’m blown away by your use of first person and those stories from these people who needed their education to be more accessible. This is wonderful and you said nothing about us without us. In my Australian context here, that’s used a lot by our indigenous people as we’re trying to embed indigenous perspectives into schools generally. But of course, from my perspective in the music classroom, that is a saying we’ve got to say to ourselves all the time because they say nothing about us without us. No, we shouldn’t just do that activity and do that song without checking or working with the indigenous people to make sure it’s culturally appropriate and accurate and all of those things. So I just thought that was interesting, that’s a phrase used a lot in Australia by the indigenous people.
Rhoda Bernard
It makes a lot of sense to me to hear it that way. Actually everyone should use it whatever representation we want to talk about, because when the real perspective is absent, there’s something seriously wrong. We can’t speak for people and we can’t pretend that we have another person’s experience. There’s no substitute for the first person perspective.
Debbie O’Shea
I love it. That’s just going to add so much to your book and to the reading of your book. This is exciting.
Rhoda Bernard
I certainly hope so. I got some great quotes, I did the interviews on Zoom and all of the folks have read everything and have given permission, and their bios are all included in the front of the book. So it’s all different art forms, all different disabilities and literally, people from all over the world. There’s at least one artist from Australia.
Looking Ahead: Future Projects and Higher Education
Debbie O’Shea
Exciting. Oh, I love it. Well, what are you working on now though?
Rhoda Bernard
Good question. So this is a little, tiny story. So all these years, right? 37 years, or 38 years, or whatever it’s been, I’ve been like niggling in the back of my head, I want to be a person who writes a book, and I’ve been lamenting all this time. I’m working 12 months a year. I don’t get time off. When am I gonna write a book? Okay? I have a sabbatical. I wrote the book. Now that I did it, I’m like, Oh, I can do that. Because it’s just like writing a lot of articles and I write articles all the time, so I’m like, Oh, I can do that. So I and a team of three other people who work for me at the Institute, a different team from the one I mentioned before, but equally wonderful, are in the process now of writing a manuscript and we’re working with a publisher on another book that I don’t think is likely to come out until at least 2027 but we’re in the middle of that project now.
Debbie O’Shea
Are you allowed to say what that book is about?
Rhoda Bernard
I’ll tell you this much. That book is about higher education, performing arts education, making it accessible. So colleges and universities are dealing with a whole different mix of elements and higher ed faculty often don’t have pedagogical training. They have subject matter expertise. There’s a lot of interesting dynamics. There’s great teaching in higher ed too, whether people are trained or not. But there’s also some holes because it tends to be subject matter expertise based. So we are putting together some resources and some philosophical conceptual grounding in things like neurodiversity and anti ableism and disability justice for the book. That one’s a big project, but I think that’s going to be great.
Debbie O’Shea
That is big and I really don’t want to, as I say, cast nasturtiums, onto our current tertiary lecturers. But certainly historically and looking back, there’s just been with teacher training particularly, there’s not been a lot of practice what you preach, it’s let’s differentiate, let’s make it interesting. Let’s do all these things. Yeah, but I don’t have to because I’m a university lecturer. I don’t have to actually show you all of this good education practice because you’re grown ups. No, no, actually, you should be good teachers as well.
Rhoda Bernard
Exactly. And I think in the performing arts folks are, how shall I say this delicately, historically, I’m going to use your frame, historically the arts, and including music educators may not receive the same kind of value in the higher education context, as those who are making art full time, I’ll leave it there.
Debbie O’Shea
Yes, I have a friend that did a PhD and I’m giving no more details but was at the absolute bottom of the PhD heap, because her area was to do with education. Like, as soon as you say education, yep, you’re down the bottom. It’s okay if you’re studying this specific chord in French recorder music in the 1600s, you’ll get a grant, you’ll get help. Oh, yep, are you looking at how adolescents learn? Who needs that trash? Let’s get to nuggets of fabulous. My listeners like the nuggets of fabulous. I coined that phrase in like the first interview I did 160ish podcasts ago. So I’m stuck with it now, but I’m quite happy to be stuck with it. Nuggets of fabulous. I love it. You’ve already given us so many ideas and thoughts, but what piece of advice would you like to pass on to our listeners today?
Nuggets of Fabulous
Rhoda Bernard
In addition to the other advice that I said about not trying to do everything, trying to be everybody, try one thing instead. That is a big piece of advice. But when people ask me, What could I do right away to make my teaching more accessible. I’m going to say three quick things. Number one, use more visuals. I’m going to tell you why and this is in the book, every learning modality matters and as I said, in music education we tend to be auditory, but the visual modality is unique. The auditory modality is temporary. A sound is a moment in time and then it’s gone, the experience of it. Same with a kinesthetic experience, it’s a moment in time. Visuals stick around, so you put a visual up with the instructions for what you need to do in class and so you use that as your teaching tool. Let’s say you have a student who’s distracted, that visual is there to support them. Let’s say you have a student who’s anxious, that visual is there to support them. Let’s say you have a student who takes longer to process, that visual is there to support them. So the visual does double duty. It’s a teaching and learning modality and a support and they don’t have to be fancy at all, but more visual supports like that, just putting something up on the board will help a lot of students. So that’s number one. Number two is keeping a consistent structure to the meetings that you have with students, so putting up an agenda on the board and making sure that it’s clear that everybody’s in agreement with what’s happening and what’s going to happen next and that you follow that structure. Structure provides a sense of security. It alleviates anxiety. It also clues students in on what’s happening and gives them a sense of control. So it’s not like their music education is happening to them. They’re more of a partner in it. So that’s a biggie. The third one is more of a philosophical approach, rather than a strategy. The phenomenal Temple Grandin. She is a scholar, speaker, brilliant writer, person with autism, of great repute. She’s written many books and she coined a phrase that she used as the title of one of her books and I think this phrase is really important and it is “different not less”. So every single human being’s brain is different. There is no standard normal brain at all. If you opened up everybody’s heads and looked they’d all be different, partly genetics, partly neuroplasticity. So I sing and play piano, so there are certain neural pathways, because I do those things a lot and I do a lot of yoga, for example, that those neural pathways the topography of my brain has changed, whereas somebody else who plays the clarinet and does jiu jitsu and loves to cook, would have different neural pathways. So our brains all look different. So we need to embrace the richness of the differences in how we all think, learn, engage with the world and not think of differences as less than. Think of differences as something to be curious about and something to celebrate. So it would be those things.
Debbie O’Shea
That is wonderful, different not less. That is great and we might even look up some of the work now, what was the lady’s name?
Rhoda Bernard
Temple Grandin. So I’m going to tell you what to look up. Okay, there was a film. There was an HBO film made about her life, gosh, years ago now, Claire Danes is the lead and she won the Emmy for it. It’s called Temple Grandin. It’s a phenomenal 90 minute experience of her life story. That’s a great place to start, but Temple has written numerous, too many books to count, and articles, and she tours the world as a speaker. She does not have an arts background, but she’s a big supporter of music and all of the arts. She sees the importance of them. Her expertise is in livestock handling. The film shows us really well, she has a background in engineering and she has an incredible instinct about how livestock travel through different spaces and how to, if you’re going to take the livestock to be unfortunately processed, how to do it in a humane way, right? So there’s a lot there. Her writing is really rich and quite excellent. So Temple Grandin is someone to read.
Debbie O’Shea
Okay? They are great nuggets. Thank you.
Rhoda Bernard
My pleasure.
Debbie O’Shea
It’s good. I wanted to get back to advocacy. We touched on it at the beginning and I wanted to save it for the end, because obviously it’s in your experience and I think many music educators are having to work harder to keep their programs alive not just for your own sake, for the sake of the children. In fact, it’s not for your own sake at all. It’s only for the sake of the children. So what would be your advice around advocacy? We’ve actually already touched on some I’ve talked about visiting politicians and grassroots power and parent power. What sort of advice could you give us around advocacy?
Advocacy for Music Education
Rhoda Bernard
Two pieces of advice that will not be groundbreaking. So the first is that a lot of people, when they think about advocacy, want to get quantitative data. They want to give numbers because they think, Oh, the administrators are going to want numbers. I actually think stories are better. So collecting stories, student stories, it’s so easy now to make a simple video. Collecting student stories, teacher stories, but stories about what music education means to people and how it’s been so valuable. So I think stories can be very powerful. The second, this is something we do a lot in the States and I don’t know if this happens in Australia, but it’s not that groundbreaking. That is not just to go visit the politicians and the policy makers, but bring them in to a beginning violin class and put an instrument in their hand, give them the experience so that they can live it firsthand.
Debbie O’Shea
Yeah, I love that, getting them in to do that, invite them to your concerts too. But yeah, I think that if you can get them into the class that’s even more powerful.
Rhoda Bernard
Agreed. To see the process.
Debbie O’Shea
It has been an absolute delight to meet you Rhoda.
Rhoda Bernard
The same to you Debbie, this has been so lovely.
Final Thoughts
Debbie O’Shea
I’m all inspired now. Alright, we’re going to finish with a soapbox moment. You get to get on your soapbox and tell the world whatever you think is important.
Rhoda Bernard
Wow. Arts are a fundamental part of human existence. They are equally important as everything else that human beings do and I would say more important, because it’s where our humanity lies. Every single living person must have unfettered access to the arts and arts education. They should be able to go to any museum, any play, any concert, any dance performance, you name it, any exhibition to experience in person, the humanity of other people and their own humanity writ large. That’s what I would say on a soapbox.
Debbie O’Shea
That is wonderful, and I will say farewell on that note, thank you for joining us Rhoda.
Rhoda Bernard
Thank you so much for having me Debbie, this has been such a joy. Thank you.
Sign-Off
Thank you for joining me for this podcast. Don’t forget, you’ll find the show notes and transcript and all sorts of information on crescendo.com.au. If you’ve enjoyed the podcast or found it valuable, you might like to rate it on your podcast player and leave a review. I’d really appreciate it if you did. All I can be is the best version of me. All you can do is be the best you. Until next time, bye.
Just for Laughs
As we know, laughter relieves stress. Don’t lose sight of the funny side of life. I want to go and party with construction workers………. because they raise the roof.
Introducing The Crescendo Music Education Podcast
7th April, 2022
00:01:15
1.7MB
You Are Important! A Reminder for Music Teachers | 001
11th April, 2022 00:23:34 20.8MB
Introduction to Batching | 002
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